"A snowblower is a must for any area that gets a lot of snow and has foot traffic and the need to keep sidewalks and driveways clear," said David Blakely, who owns and operates Ophelia's Garden Inn in Syracuse with his wife, Ophelia Papworth Blakely.

Michael Dukakis's "snowblower," and both the amusing frugality and the admirable husbandry of resources it was meant to suggest, derived from some half-remembered idea of what citizens of this vanished America had laughed at and admired.